strathspey@strathspey.org:45324

Anselm Lingnau
May 19, 2006, 9:09 a.m. (Message 45324)

Re: Copying Cassettes onto CD

Martin Sheffield wrote:
> Actually, iI have managed to find a socket labeled microphone on my
> older windows laptop.
> Unfortunately, the CD player on that model stopped working a few days
> after the guarantee expired!
You can't drive a microphone input from a tape recorder output -- the
microphone input is designed to pick up signals that are far weaker than what
the tape recorder produces (which is called »line level«) and would be
terribly overdriven if not damaged.
The sound cards for stationary PCs usually feature line inputs, but on a
notebook, you're pretty much out of luck. Your best bet if you're really into
this would be to try and obtain an external sound module based on, e.g., USB
or (more likely, on a Mac) FireWire (IEEE 1394). These are available at
prices ranging from the not exactly cheap to the utterly astronomical (for
professionals' use). Their advantage is that, at least for the somewhat
better ones, the quality they produce is usually way beyond that of anything
built directly into a PC, as the inside of a PC is not a particularly
suitable environment for converting analogue signals to digital without
picking up all kinds of distortion. (Although, if your original input comes
from cassette tapes, this may not really matter -- owing to the way tapes
work, their quality isn't usually that great to begin with.)
Anselm
--
Anselm Lingnau, Frankfurt, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.
-- Henry Adams